You know a game is good when the worst thing you can say about it is that it's the first entry in a series of five games and the other four aren't on Steam. If anyone from City Interactive is reading this, please, make it happen, bring the rest of the series to Steam. (Also consider putting the Art of Murder series on here as well.)

I'm not going to delve too deeply into the story, and the gameplay is standard adventure game fare. There's a button to highlight interactive objects, which is good considering the highly detailed environments. The voice acting is decent. The screenplay contains several examples of broken English; but that's no big surprise considering the game was made by non-native English speakers. (And honestly, it's nowhere near as bad as some other Polish games.) Sadly, this Steam version has no other language options.

I was tripped up early on and had to peak at a walkthrough -- not because the puzzle was hard but because the game makes use of a single tricky mechanic. The latter entails you having to investigate items in your inventory by first right clicking on them and then left clicking on the enlarged viewing window. Nowhere is this explained and nowhere is there any graphic indication that a left-click will do anything. Most of the time you'll get no result from investigating items in this manner but some puzzles require it.

SCORES

Graphics: 65 %

The game looked fairly good when it came out back in 2008 and it looks fairly good now. The visuals are effective at conveying the locations and, as previously mentioned, this is the first game in a series. Having read up on the later entries it seems the technical qualities of the games have definitely improved with each entry.

Sound: 80 %

Good voice acting from the English-language version of any game is something of a pleasant surprise nowadays. I prefer playing adventures in German (despite not being German), as the writing and voice acting tend to be several steps above the English version. Here we unfortunately don't have the option of playing in German. The voice acting is good though; you'll note actors playing more than one character in-game, but that's clearly a result of budget restrictions as opposed to the developers thinking we wouldn't notice. (And honestly, it doesn't detract much from the overall quality of the game.)

The musical score deserves special mention. It's excellent throughout and, in my opinion, could easily stand in for any Hollywood blockbuster's score. Superb.

Execution: 75 %

It's a well-executed lower-budget adventure game. The Scorpio Ritual isn't going to compete with the much better funded Secret Files series or something like the truly amazing Perry Rhodan, released in the same year. But perhaps it also isn't mean to. The game gives the impression of real care having been taking with its development; despite being on a strict budget the developers clearly still meant it to be the best it could be.

Addictiveness: 80 %

I enjoyed it, I wanted to see what happens next, I kept playing.

Overall: 70 %

I want to see more Chronicles of Mystery on Steam. That is the best compliment I can give this game. I don't hesitate in recommending it and hope that others will do the same. Do note the playing time though. The Scorpio Ritual isn't a game capable of standing on its own two feet; it definitely feels like a first episode in a grander story; and it has the length to go with it. Meaning, you may not want to pay full price for it, but that's for you to decide.

I have no problem recommending this game to my fellow hardcore adventure gamers.

The highlight of this game is the well-present graphics, stand-out soundtrack and likeable main character which give a very pleasant first feel to the game. The dialogue, while the main character is done well, comes across as uneven, odd and nonsensical. The story is yet another riff on the Knight Templar and remains serviceable until the ridiculous ending.

The biggest problem is that this game is the excessively linear, even for the genre. You simply cannot do any actions until some prior action has been done, and the game informs you of this bluntly. If you haven’t got all the objects from a map, you can’t leave. The game is plagued with do random event X in random location Y and then gets a phone call to make the story progress.

Then there is the problem of the voice acting getting clipped, the fact that the voice acting is often vastly different from the sub-titles, random objects you need lying around in random locations, and all you have is a mess. It’s too bad, because there are some parts of this game that are done well, and other parts that are done poorly. It has potential, but just never lives up to it.

A little glitchy in parts re: Speech in regards to what is on the screen. A problem solving game rather than a hidden object game which is quite refreshing. Puzzles vary in simplicity to complexity. A rather absorbing game, set some time aside, this is one of those that will pull you in and steal hours :D

If you get it really really cheap it isn't unplayable. It just isn't good, or even interesting in any way. The plot and the writing, as well as the characterization range between bad, absurd, same-old-crap and uninspired. The puzzles are too often arbitrary and generally not very enjoyable, but at least there's no pixel hunting. The linearity of them is also annoying occasionally (do this random arbitrary thing first, if you want the story to continue). The backgrounds are rather good, probably the one redeeming quality of this game; the animations a bit less so but not bad. I didn't mind the music, though I found it forgetable, and the voice acting was the standard (read not good but not offensive) fare one usually expects in point & clicks of this budget. The voice acting glitches occasionally, which didn't bother me since I didn't enjoy it and I could read the subtitles instead. What annoyed me more was that except in dialogs, you can't skip certain voice bits, making them repetitive and annoying during some puzzles. It lasts about/under 3 hours, which I suppose is ok for the asking price.

Personally I just didn't care about it. I have a soft spot for this type of mediocre, "mindless entertainment" type of point&clicks, and I'm willing to forgive alot of campiness and even glitches in them, but this one, apart from the pretty locations, had nothing to offer as far as I'm concerned. Get it on a sale and don't expect much if you're still interested.

Excelent game with a nice plot, the game has several nice puzzles and you get to see a lot of sceneries.I enjoyed this game a lot even though its screen resolution was a tad low, it stood out by its quality!

I fully recommend this game to anyone who likes Indiana Jones like adventures (it kind of ressembles that).